Monday, July 31, 2006

Hard Rain Journal 7-30-06: Struggle for Fair Elections, North & South of the Rio Grande

By Richard Power

Three important updates on the struggle for fair elections in both the US and Mexico.

In Mexico City, Lopez Obrador and his followers have taken their struggle for fair elections to the next level (What would the USA look like today if Gore had refused to go away in 2000, or Kerry had fought in 2004?):

Thousands of protesters caused commuter chaos by closing off Mexico City's business district to traffic on Monday, pressing the main leftist candidate's demand for a vote recount in a presidential election he says was stolen from him. Launching a campaign of civil disobedience that raises the stakes in Mexico's political crisis, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's supporters seized control of the capital's imposing Zocalo square on Sunday night as well as a six-mile (10-km) stretch of the elegant Reforma boulevard. They set up tents and huge tarpaulin covers in the middle of the wide, tree-lined avenue, cutting off all commuter traffic on Monday morning. The avenue is home to Mexico's stock market, many luxury hotels, government offices, headquarters of major corporations and the U.S. embassy. The several thousand demonstrators did not close down buildings so workers were allowed into their offices, but the occupation caused long delays for many commuters. ...The seven judges have to decide whether to reopen some or all of the ballot boxes by Aug. 31. That means Lopez Obrador's occupation of the capital could last for weeks.Kieran Murray, Mexico leftists choke capital in vote protest, Reuters, 7-31-06

And in San Diego, a suit was filed today in the suspect special election for the CA-50 seat:

Today, famed election attorney Paul Lehto filed an election contest lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court demanding a count of all paper ballots in the Busby/Bilbray special election to replace convicted Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham. On the face of the pleading, Lehto, on behalf of voters of CA-50, asserts that they are entitled to a 100% ballot count at a reasonable cost because of massive security violations of federal and state law by election officials....County Registrar Mikel Haas sent the Diebold voting machines on "sleepovers" in the unsecured homes and cars of volunteer poll workers for weeks prior to the election in violation of federal and state law. When voter Barbara Gail Jacobsen filed for a recount, Haas set an exorbitant price of $150,000 but refused to provide the documents necessary for that count....VelvetRevolution.us, a network of scores of election reform organizations demanding honest and accountable elections, is handling the fundraising for this CA-50 legal challenge and donations are being accepted on its website, www.velvetrevolution.us. ELECTION CONTEST FILED DEMANDING ACCOUNTABILITY, DECERTIFICATION AND PAPER BALLOT COUNT OF BUSBY/BILBRAY ELECTION IN CA-50, Brad Blog, 7-30-06

Meanwhile, looming behind these dramatic developments in Mexico City and San Diego, a doomsday Rovian scandal may be coming to a boil in Beltwayistan, as US Justice Department investigators on the trail of corruption continue to connect the dots to election fraud:

Justice Department investigators have begun a review of Senate Rules and Administration Committee records relating to negotiations over the Help America Vote Act, involving then-Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and former House Administration Chairman Bob Ney (R-Ohio), as they wrap up their investigation into Ney's connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate sources said Tuesday. Senate aides familiar with the review said Justice officials indicated the inquiry was not focused on Dodd, who now serves as the committee's ranking member, and the type of information investigators were seeking - while not specific enough to indicate they were looking for a smoking gun - appear to point directly at Ney....Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to bribery charges late last year, had pushed Ney to include provisions in the act that would have given federal tribal recognition to the Tigua Tribe and to allow it to reopen a casino in Texas. Abramoff represented the Tiguas. Although e-mails that have surfaced as part of the Abramoff scandal revealed the disgraced lobbyist bragged that he was close to Dodd and Ney, the provision did not make it into HAVA.Feds Investigating Ney, Abramoff, HAVA Negotiations! Case Links Ney and Abramoff, a Tribe, a Casino, Millions of Dollars and a Transparent Lie!, Brad Blog, 7-26-06

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Saturday, July 29, 2006

The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that finally turned that world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living inauthentic lives, never doing a thing they truly wanted to because the supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws. This is a killer. The twelfth-century troubadour poetry of courtly love was a protest against this supernaturally justified violation of life's joy in truth. So too the Tristan legend and at least one of the great versions of the legend of the Grail, that of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The spirit is really the bouquet of life. It is not something breathed into life, it comes out of life. This is one of the glorious things about the mother-goddess religions, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn't something ruling over and above a fallen nature. There was something of this spirit in the medieval cult of the Virgin, out of which all the beautiful thirteenth-century French cathedrals arose.However, our story of the Fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation of the divinity that is inherent in nature.Joseph Cambell, Bill Moyers Interviews Joseph Campbell on Power of Myth

Words of Power #26: Lost Symbols, Part III -- The Goddess of Liberty

By Richard Power

In the dark of a movie theater, this spring, I sat enjoying the film version of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and my consciousness wandered back to another spring, almost twenty years ago now, during which I experienced one of the epiphanies of my life.

For seven weeks, in the spring of 1989, Chinese student protesters occupied Tiananmen Square in Beijing. They refused to leave until the government met their demands for democratic reform. "Our expectations at the time ware quite clear and definite. We wanted legal recognition of the student organisation, we wanted an organisation in China similar to the trade union Solidarity in Poland, which could become a platform for promoting democracy in China, for promoting multi-party politics and for promoting freedom of speech as well as a series of other democratic developments in China." (BBC, 5-28-04)

On 5-30-89, the protesters erected a statue of a Goddess of Democracy. She stood defiantly, holding aloft a burning torch, and facing a huge poster of Chairman Mao that hung from the gate across the square. "The statue was constructed in only four days out of Styrofoam and papier-mache over a metal armature by students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The students decided to make the statue as large as possible so the government would be unable to dismantle it. The government would either have to destroy the statue - an action which would potentially fuel further criticism of its policies - or leave it standing." (Wikipedia)

When I saw her image on CNN, and on the front page of the New York Times, my heart opened up to that Goddess and the brave youths whose courage and innocence she embodied. She was Kwan-Yin, Delacroix's bare-breasted Liberty and Our Lady of Guadalupe all at once. It felt as if compassion and freedom had swirled, like two great columns of white fire, into an awesome funnel of power. She was utterly defenseless, and yet somehow indomitable, she was desperately impermanent, and yet somehow indestructable.

In the pre-dawn darkness, on 6-4-89, the People's Army moved against the protesters.

"Please remember June the Third, 1989. The most tragic event happened in the Chinese Capital, Beijing. Thousands of people, most of them innocent civilians, were killed by fully-armed soldiers when they forced their way into city. Among the killed are our colleagues at Radio Beijing. The soldiers were riding on armored vehicles and used machine guns against thousands of local residents and students who tried to block their way. When the army conveys made the breakthrough, soldiers continued to spray their bullets indiscriminately at crowds in the street. Eyewitnesses say some armored vehicles even crushed foot soldiers who hesitated in front of the resisting civilians. Radio Beijing English Department deeply mourns those who died in the tragic incident and appeals to all its listeners to join our protest for the gross violation of human rights and the most barbarous suppression of the people. Because of the abnormal situation here in Beijing there is no other news we could bring you. We sincerely ask for your understanding and thank you for joining us at this most tragic moment." http://www.cnd.org/June4th/1989.06-04.hz8.html (Beijing Radio, English Service, 6-4-89)

Driving to work, tuned in to listener-sponsored radio, I was overcome by an intrepid reporter's eyewitness account of the brutal crackdown. With tears flowing, and chest heaving, I drove on, praying for the brave youths, and for the blind men who crushed them with their tanks.

I have been reminded of the Goddess of Democracy over and over again in the years since that massacre. She is needed now, urgently, throughout the world, but particularly, and quite ironically, in the USA. It was, afterall, the Statue of Liberty, which, despite the denials of the protesters, was one of the powerful icons that inspired their creation. Designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, and engineered by Gustave Eiffel, the Statue of Libery was given to the USA in 1886, as a centennial gift and as a gesture of friendship from the French people.

And yet, in 2006, the Bush-Cheney regime's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not even recognize it as a national monument:

"New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent--from $207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006. The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists." (The Blotter, ABC News, 6-1-06)

Whenever I see someone with a red, white, and blue USA flag lapel pin on his suit jacket, I wonder how much better the national psyche would be if if the default expression of patriotism, among those in the professional class, was to don a tiny replica of the US Constitution or the Statue of Liberty, instead of "Old Glory."

The Constitution is the mind of the USA, and the Statue of Liberty is its heart.

There is no articulate mystery to the flag. It emits no subliminal call to our common humanity. It only asks blind allegiance, without offering any code or caution.

The USA is losing its mind, as recent studies by the ABA and the CATO Institute have shown:

Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power. In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad....President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers.Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W, Bush, CATO Institute, 5-1-06

But the USA is not only losing its mind, it's also losing its heart.

A government "of, by and for" the people, inspired by the Goddess of Liberty would have no reason to deny the Red Cross access to prisoners in its custody, nor would it turn a deaf ear to the urgent need of hundreds of thousands of refugees whether in Lebanon or New Orleans.

A government "of, by and for" the people, inspired by the Goddess of Liberty, would not have failed to fulfill the security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, nor would it allow itself to be distracted until the predators (Bin Laden and Zawahiri) who hunt its innocents have been killed or captured.

A government "of, by and for" the people, inspired by the Goddess of Liberty, would not be so ignorant of the mysteries of creation as to thwart medical research into unlocking the healing power of embryonic stem cells, nor would it have been so irresponsible with the nation's purse strings as to squandered a healthy, hard-won surplus and plunge us into staggering debt.

A government "of, by and for" the people, inspired by the Goddess of Liberty, would not have snubbed and ridiculed the grieving loves ones of Casey Sheehan or Pat Tillman, nor would it be numb and dumb to the direct, dire threat of global warming.

Om Tara Tutare Ture Soha, Om Tara Tutare Ture Soha...

You do not have to believe that Mary Magdalene bore Jesus' child, or that their blood flows in the veins of the descendents of the Merovingian kings, to understand that the desert religions of the West, i.e., Judaism, Christianity and Islam, suffer from their denial of the divine feminine, and that the militarism and misogyny of the extremists flows from that denial.

If you have ever experienced the supernatural power of "Holy Mary, Mother of God" at Fatima, Lourdes, or Guadalupe, or stood on the Staten Island ferry on a starry, wintry night and been awed by the majesty of the Statue of Liberty, or felt the intercession of Tara being invoked with temple bells, incense, and sacred syllables high in the Himalayas, then you probably understand what has been lost...

Om Tara Tutare Ture Soha, Om Tara Tutare Ture Soha...

In Lost Symbols, Part I, I invoked the World Tree, as an image embodying the oneness of all life. In Lost Symbols, Part II, I invoked the Rainbow Serpent as an image embodying sustainability, and suggested that it should be envisioned as coiling around the World Tree.

In Lost Symbols, Part III, I invoke the Goddess of Liberty and Compassion, and suggest you envision her striding through a sea of tears to illuminate the tableau of the World Tree and the Rainbow Serpent on the far shore.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Friday, July 28, 2006

The continuing Israeli bombing of south Lebanon and south Beirut might just have strengthened the Hezbollah. The bombings appear particularly to have strengthened the hand of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic Hezbollah leader. Hezbollah has over the years gained a strong following in Lebanon primarily on the back of its engagement in social services, taking on infrastructure projects, and looking after its followers. The Israeli assault is giving Hezbollah scope to gain more such power. Hezbollah now controls, for example, more than half of about 100 schools in Beirut that have been converted into refugee shelters….A Hezbollah member in charge of a group of fighters in southern Beirut claimed that support for Hezbollah has increased dramatically since the Israeli attacks began two weeks ago….Dahr Jamail, Hezbollah Could Be Gaining Strength, Inter Press News Service, 7-26-06

It is a remarkable synergy (or perhaps "sinergy" would be a more appropriate spelling). Cheney needed a pretext, a big one, a "second Pearl Harbor," and Zawahiri gave it to him (9/11). Zawahiri needed a boost for Al Qaeda on the Arab Street, a big boost, a shot in the arm, and Cheney gave it to him (Iraq and Abu Ghraib). Now, as the US mid-term elections draw closer, and the threat of real acountability increases, the only way to distract attention from the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan is with fresh war involving Israel, with the the chilling spectre of WWW III looming behind it. And now Zawahiri wraps it all up with a lovely blood-red ribbon, by injecting the phantom of Al Qaeda into the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Al Qaeda has signalled its intent to use the war in Lebanon as a recruitment tool, despite the ideological gulf between its Sunni Muslim leaders and the Shi'ite Hizbollah militants fighting Israel. Arab security analysts said a video from al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri on Thursday, in which he urged Muslims to "fight and become martyrs" in response to the conflict in Lebanon, would strike a chord with some on the Arab street. They said it would tap into a growing feeling among militant Islamists that the fight against Israel must take precedence over sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. For al Qaeda, the 16-day-old Lebanon conflict is "a great opportunity and a good instrument for recruitment," said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.Mark Trevelyan, Al Qaeda exploits Lebanon war despite Shi'ite rift, Reuters, 7-27-06

The Israeli occupation of Jerusalem has long been an al Qaeda bugbear....But Bin Laden always avoided investing in an area where there was already an active insurgency. He also could not join in with heretical Shiites like Hizbulah. Ayman al Zawahiri today made a change in both policies. He wants al Qaeda to pile on in Gaza and to defend Hizbullah in Lebanon. The Sunni Arab regimes have been reluctant to press too hard for ceasefire because they see Hizbullah as an agent of Iran. This foot dragging has been unpopular among the public. Al Qaeda is now playing to that gallery. As usual, Israel is radicalizing the Muslim world. The US, too, will suffer. Zawahiri has turned to pan Islam and the Near Enemy. He is willing to help Nasrallah and the Qassam Brigades. It is a historic about face. It could be significant. More later.Juan Cole, Qaeda enters Fray, Informed Comment, 7-27-06

The Bush-Cheney Policy of Malign Neglect Blossoms

What is unfolding now in the Middle East is the poisonous blossom of the Neo-Con cabal's policy of Malign Neglect. Remember, it did not have to be this way. When you hear Condoleeza Rice talk about ceasefires being ineffectual, remember what she and her overlords said about the UN weapons inspection in Iraq.

Richard Armitage dramatically broke ranks with his neoconservative allies yesterday, saying in a radio interview that he feared it was impossible to eliminate Hezbollah through airstrikes, and that by attempting to do so, “you’re going to end up empowering Hezbollah, and perhaps introducing an element into the body politic in Lebanon that will take some great period of time to recover from.” Armitage also criticized the Bush administration for refusing to talk directly to Syria. According to a database search, no major media outlets have yet printed Armitage’s remarks.Armitage Fears Bombing Campaign Will ‘End Up Empowering Hezbollah’, Think Progress, 7-27-06

Washington has long been pro-Israel, but under President Clinton and the first President Bush there was an effort to be seen as a plausible mediator. Not under George W. Far from keeping lines of communication open with Hezbollah's two key patrons - Syria and Iran - they have been cast into outer darkness, branded as spokes, or satellites, of the axis of evil. As a result there has been no mechanism to restrain Hezbollah...But the record of failure goes deeper than that. It began in the president's first week, when Bush decided he would not repeat what he perceived as his predecessor's mistake by allowing his presidency to be mired in the fruitless search for Israeli-Palestinian peace....While Henry Kissinger once racked up 24,230 miles in just 34 days of shuttle diplomacy, Bush's envoys have been sparing in their visits to the region. The result is that the core conflict has been allowed to fester. Had it been solved, or even if there had been a serious effort to solve it, the current crisis would have been unimaginable. Instead, Bush's animating idea has been that the peoples of the Middle East can be bombed into democracy and terrorized into moderation. It has proved one of the great lethal mistakes of his abominable presidency - and the peoples of Israel and Lebanon are paying the price.Jonathan Freedland, At the Heart of the Lebanon Crisis Lie the Lethal Mistakes Of George Bush: Instead of pursuing a Middle East peace deal, the White House's big idea has been to bomb people into democracy, Guardian, 7-26-06

The Israelis Smash the Mirror

In recent days, both UN peacekeepers and Red Cross ambulance drivers have been attacked by the Israelis. Why? Because they represent the collective conscience of the human race? Because they hold up a mirror? Hezbollah is ugly and hateful. Of course, Israel has the right to defend itself, but will it defend itself from the enemy within, i.e., from its own "Neo-Con" cabal?

UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says. The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling, diplomats familiar with the probe say. The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post in the town of Khiam was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday....A senior Irish soldier working for the UN forces had warned the Israelis six times that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff, Ireland's foreign ministry said.Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea, BBC, 7-26-06

Six Red Cross volunteers were wounded in the Sunday attack, and the injured family they were ferrying to safety suffered fresh agonies. A middle-age man lost his leg from the knee down. His mother was partially paralyzed. A little boy's head was hammered by shrapnel…Young men and women with easy grins and a breezy disregard for their own safety, they have remained as the last visible strand of social structure intact after days of Israeli bombardment….Fiercely proud of their work at the Red Cross, they had clung desperately to the hope that, as lifesavers, they would be spared….They came to a stop on a stretch of battle-pocked roadway in Qana. The medics favor that spot because the ambulances, with their trademark red crosses emblazoned on the roofs, can be seen clearly from above. They thought it was safe….Both ambulances were hit, directly and systematically, by Israeli bombs, the medics said.Megan K. Stack, Israeli Missiles Rip Into Medics' Esprit de Corps, LA Times, 7-25-06

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

In Europe today, heat waves resulting from climate change have forced governments to shut down cargo shipping on rivers in Poland and the Czech Republic and loosen environmental safety controls on nuclear power plants in France, Spain and Germany. It also caused a higher than usual sick rate in the Netherlands, and led Europe’s fruit and vegetable processing industry to warn of empty shelves in stores. (Similar problems are arising throughout the US, but unfortunately, the US mainstream news media, unlike the European mainstream news meda, refuses to connect the climate change dots and only reports on these problems as isolated weather stories, without acknowledge the role of global warming.)

Is your organization prepared? Is your family prepared? Have you reviewed your business continuity, emergency preparedness and crisis management plans? Most plans now in place need to be revised to better cope with prolonged heat waves and infrastructure failures. You need to think differently about your organization’s energy resources. You need to think differently about telecommuting.

Climate change, like bird flu, provides an opportunity to engage and empower your people through awareness and education. Your organization needs to adapt, and it needs to do it rapidly and intelligently. It can be done economically, and effectively.

Most organizations did not heed the warning back in 2003.

I traveled the world between 2003 and 2005, talking to responsible executives and managers about the security implications of global warming and climate change, and I could see the disappointing truth behind the false attentiveness in their eyes; they could not see beyond what had happened before, they could not grasp what was in front of them or comprehend what was coming. Is it any different for you now? Those who understand what is happening today, and what it tells us about tomorrow, will act urgently, cleverly, and holistically.

Here are two news wire stories that provide substantiation about the current situation in Europe:

A deadly heatwave gripping central Europe has raised fears of forest fires in Poland, sent electricity prices rocketing in Germany and caused the suspension of shipping on major rivers as water levels dwindle….Shipping on the river Elbe -- which also runs through the Czech Republic and Poland -- was stopped as water levels dropped nearly 1 metre (yard) to around 95 centimetres in Germany. "No cargo shipping is possible," said Herbert Dorf, a senior official at the Water and Shipping Bureau in Magdeburg. There is a similar situation with the Oder river, which forms a stretch of the border between Germany and Poland….A leading food industry group said Europe's shops and supermarkets are facing a shortage of vegetables later this year as a result of the current heatwave. According to OEITFL, which represents Europe's fruit and vegetable processing industry, shop owners must prepare for the likelihood of empty shelves, fridges and freezers. In the Netherlands, human resources firm Arbo Unie, which monitors 2.2 million workers in the country, said sick rates are 7.5 percent higher than last year due to the heat. Karin Strohecker, Europe heatwave sparks disruptions, fire fears, Reuters, 7-26-06

The extreme hot summer in Europe is restricting nuclear energy generation and showing up the limits of nuclear power, leading environmental activists and scientists say. The heat wave since mid-June has led authorities in France, Germany, Spain and elsewhere in Europe to override their own environmental norms on the maximum temperature of water drained from the plants' cooling systems. "For many years now, French authorities have defended nuclear power arguing that it is clean energy, good for the environment, and that it will help combat global warming, for it does not emit greenhouse gases," Stephane Lhomme, coordinator of the environmental network Sortir du Nucléaire (Phase Out Nuclear Power) told IPS. "Now, with global warming leading to extreme hot summers, we are witnessing that it is the other way round," Lhomme said. "Global warming is showing the limits of nuclear power plants, and nuclear power is destroying our environment." During the hot summer of 2003, French authorities had allowed nuclear power plants to drain excessively hot water into rivers, leading to considerable damage to flora and fauna, Lhomme said….In France, nuclear scientist Hubert Reeves urged the government to "invest massively" in renewable energy resources. "We are behind many of our European partners such as Germany, Denmark and Spain in this matter, and cannot wait until the energy crisis reaches its climax to find an alternative to our present model," he told IPS. A crisis, he said, "is round the corner." Fossil energy sources are about to be exhausted, and "nuclear technology will not solve present problems within a reasonable period of time.we should abandon nuclear power and invest in alternative sources."Julio Godoy, Heat Wave Shows Limits of Nuclear Energy, Inter Press Service, 7-27-06

The political establishment is not providing leadership. The news media is not providing leadership.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

In an interview with Tulsa World, Inhofe compared people who believed global warming was a problem to Nazis...“It kind of reminds . . . I could use the Third Reich, the big lie,” Inhofe said. “The big lie,” is a propaganda technique Adolf Hitler attributed to Jews in his book Mein Kampf. It involves telling lies “so colossal” that no one would believe “others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Inhofe added that every claim in An Inconvenient Truth “has been refuted scientifically.” He also admitted he’d never seen the movie. Inhofe also compared An Inconvenient Truth to Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf.Sen. Inhofe Compares People Who Believe In Global Warming To ‘The Third Reich’, Think Progress, 7-24-06

Sen. Inhofe is Chairman of the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. How could this person be allowed to hold on to such great power? The answer, of course, is twofold -- without campaign finance reform, Exxon's money is more powerful than the conscience of the nation, and without real media reform most people will not hear the truth about global warming, climate change, sustainability, or the consumption of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, in the reality-based community...

Global warming puts 12 of the most famous U.S. national parks at risk, environmentalists said on Tuesday, conjuring up visions of Glacier National Park without glaciers and Yellowstone Park without grizzly bears. All 12 parks are located in the American West, where temperatures have risen twice as fast as in the rest of the United States over the last 50 years, said Theo Spencer of the Natural Resources Defense Council...The report released by the council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization stressed the connection between global warming and environmental damage at the parks, including the loss of specific wildlife, and called on the U.S. government to cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly in 10 years....The report said the parks at greatest risk are:- Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico;- Death Valley National Park, California;- Glacier National Park, Montana;- Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah and Arizona;- Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California;- Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming;- Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado;- Mount Rainier National Park, Washington state;- North Cascades National Park, Washington state;- Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado;- Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho;- Yosemite National Park, California.Deborah Zabarenko, Global warming puts 12 US parks at risk: report, Reuters, 7-25-06

National parks, whether in the US or Kenya or New Zealand or Argentina, are more than tourist spots or recreation centers, they are an essential ingredient in the alchemy of civilization. Neglect them, and you neglect yourself. Destroy them, and you destroy yourself.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Afghanistan's notorious Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was set up by the Taliban to enforce bans on women doing anything from working to wearing nail varnish or laughing out loud, is to be recreated by the Government in Kabul. The decision has provoked an outcry among women and human rights activists who fear a return to the days when religious police patrolled the streets, beating or arresting any woman who was not properly covered by a burka or accompanied by a male relative. re-establish the department, and the measure will go to Afghanistan's parliament when it reconvenes. The conservative complexion of the assembly makes it likely to be passed….Laura Bush took over her husband's weekly radio address in November 2001 to boast that "because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment". Yet almost five years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghan women are far from achieving these aims. There have already been more attacks in the first half of this year than all of last year and according to a UN official, barely a day goes by without a school being burnt or teacher killed.Christina Lamb, Women Back under Wraps with Taliban Vice Squad, The Australian, 7-24-06

Hard Rain Journal 7-26-06: Hard Rain Journal 7-25-06: As the Next Bait and Switch Get Pulled, Remember Osama Bin Laden and the Child Brides of Afghanistan-- Before You Start Something with Shia Extremists, Why Don't You Finish What You Started with the Sunni Extremists?

By Richard Power

There is no way of knowing whether or not a concerted, holistic effort, based on the UN Millennium Goals, and backed up by disciplined, but sustained military power, would have made a profound difference in Afghanistan, but the results certainly could not have been any worse than what has been produced after the US misdirected its attention, will and resources to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and probably would have been significantly better.

Five years after 911, Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and Mulla Omar remain alive and at large, and their organizations, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, are both resurgent and on the attack.

"Today, al-Qaida has not only regrouped, but it is on the march," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. "Al-Qaida is now functioning exactly as its founder and leader, Osama bin Laden, envisioned it.” "Today, al-Qaida is also frequently spoken of as it if is in retreat: a broken and beaten organization incapable of mounting further attacks on its own and instead having devolved operational authority either to its carious affiliates and associated or to entirely organically produced, homegrown, terrorist entities. Nothing could be further from the truth," Hoffman told the committee. The Afghan attack "pulverized" al-Qaida, Hoffman told United Press International Wednesday….In the ensuing four years since the attack, the organization has evolved into what bin Laden set out to create: a fractured, worldwide movement inspired by bin Laden and united by a single vision, as well as a central organization that continues to direct the implementation of terrorist attacks. PAMELA HESS, Al-Qaida regrouping, on the march, UPI, 7-19-06

Five years after Western countries promised Afghans to rebuild their country, Afghanistan is on the brink, facing its worst crisis since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001….Ordinary Afghans have no doubt that the Taliban virus is spreading. Taliban have been reported just 25 miles from the capital, distributing at night written death threats to those who help the government....Karzai is now seen by many Afghans and Western diplomats as betraying the reform and nation building agenda set out by the Bonn agreement in 2001 and reverting back to rule by fiat on tribal and ethnic lines….It is clear that the slow delivery of Western aid has wrecked the political will in the government, demoralized Afghans and given fuel to Taliban propaganda. Predicted one European ambassador: "The next few months will be critical." Ahmed Rashid, AFGHANISTAN AND ITS FUTURE, Eurasianet, 6/26/06

For most of the last five years, the misdirected focus of the US political establishment has been on US-UK led military adventure in Iraq, which no sane person could deny has failed, and only brought greater instability to the region. Now the US political establishment has fixed its misdirected attention on the seemingly sudden eruption of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has so savagely disrupted the Lebanese healing process, and threatens to further destablize the region.

Neither Saddam Hussein's Iraq, nor the Hezbollah had any role in 911 or in subsequent terrorist attacks in Bali, Casablanca, Istanbul, Jakarta, Madrid, London, Amman or Mumbai (in either 2003 and 2006).

As brutal and criminal as it was, Saddam Hussein's regime was a secular state, and a sworn enemy of both Shia and Sunni religious extremists. But in the aftermath of 911, the so-called "Neo-Conservatives" (although Corporatists or Neo-Totalitarians would be more accurate terms) pulled a bait and switch, i.e., Iraq for Afghanistan, with the complicity of the US mainstream news media and much of the Democratic Party leadership.

Now, another crude bait and switch is being pulled off, i.e., Iran/Syria/Hezbollah for Iraq, and again it is being done with the complicity of the US mainstream news media and much of the Democratic Party leadership.

Those who attacked the US on 911, and who inspired the subsequent attacks in Bali, Casablanca, Istanbul, Jakarta, Madrid, London, Amman or Mumbai (in either 2003 and 2006) were and are even now aided and abbetted, shielded and given succour in Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Sunni countries, not in Iran or Syria or southern Lebanon.

The Bush-Cheney cabal's military adventurism in Iraq, has strengthend the strategic position of Iran, by freeing and mobilizing the Shia masses in southern Iraq, and at the same time, played directly into the hands of Osama Bin Laden by launching a pre-emptive war to seize a soverign country, and engaging in torture and atrocities in the ensuing occupation.

None of it makes any sense, unless of course you come to grips with the fact that military action against Iraq and Iran were the goals from the beginning (as documented by the PNAC plan), and that killing Bin Laden and crushing Al Qaeda are simply not a high priorty for Bush-Cheney (they certainly weren't a priority for them before 911). Indeed, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have proved very useful as the fallback bogey men in the ongoing manipulation of the US electorate.

The Swiss foreign ministry says it has earmarked about SFr1.3 million ($1.05 million) to recruit hundreds of women for Afghanistan's police force. Run by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), it is part of a larger project to restore law and order in the country....The aim is to train a professional corps loyal to the government and "widely visible to the public, creating a sense of comfort among the population". Currently there are around 200 women serving in the Afghan police force. Female personnel receive the same salary as their male counterparts. The training programme teaches recruits about women's rights and constitutional and international conventions related to human rights. Swiss push gender equality among Afghan police, Swiss Info, 7-21-06

In December 2004 [Polish Humanitarian Organization] PHO launched second, extended edition of artistic and vocational courses for children. The project involves cultural diversity workshop, courses of traditional Afghan music, arts, calligraphy, learning about multicultural world and human rights as well as vocational trainings, for instance hairdressing. It concerns two orphanages from Kabul...135 children will take part in mentioned activities throughout the year 2006...PHO activity in Afghanistan will enhance. The new projects aim not only in education sector but also in water and sanitation. PHO helps in reconstruction of Afghanistan, Reuters Alternet, 7-21-06

Think of what the ongoing occupation of Iraq is costing the US? Billions of dollars a month wasted on chaos and anarchy, with no end in sight. What could that money have bought in Afghanistan?

Now it is probably too late.

In "Bring Me the Head of Osama Bin Laden," I wrote: As of March 31, 2006, the US has suffered at least 2326 military fatalities in Iraq (http://icasualties.org/oif/). If 2326 US military personnel had died in a successful manhunt for Bin Laden in Tora Bora, would the US populace have deemed it worth the terrible sacrifice? Yes, unhesitatingly. If an unsuccessful attempt to kill or capture Bin Laden in Tora Bora had resulted in 2326 US military deaths, would the US populace have accepted the losses? Yes, unflinchingly. Because it would have understood what those young men and women sacrificed their lives for, i.e., to vanquish the perpetrators of 9/11. Would terrorism have ended if Bin Laden had been killed or captured? No, but Al Qaeda would have been weakened, psychologically. There would have been less terrorism in the ensuing years, and less innocent people would have died. A strong leader, a real leader, would have known this…

It is as true today as it was three months ago, after hundreds of more US military deaths in Iraq.

Take a look at a recent New York Times photo essay on "Child Brides" in Afghanistan (NYT Magazine, 7-9-06).

The thousands of US soldiers and billions of US dollars squandered in Iraq would have been better spent capturing or killing Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mullah Omar and crushing Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And in the process, with years of patient and enlightened humanitarian work, the US and its allies in the West could have also achieved the liberation of those little girls as well.

But just as Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda wasn't really the highest priority of Bush-Cheney before or after 911, the liberation of women and young girls from violence and abuse wasn't really a high priority either.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Monday, July 24, 2006

Hard Rain Journal 7-24-06: Five Stories about the Reality of Global Warming, Is Continued Denial Criminally Insane?

By Richard Power

A mental defect or disease that makes it impossible for a person to understand the wrongfulness of his acts or, even if he understands them, to distinguish right from wrong. Defendants who are criminally insane cannot be convicted of a crime, since criminal conduct involves the conscious intent to do wrong -- a choice that the criminally insane cannot meaningfully make. NOLO Glossary Definition of Criminal Insanity

Here are five news items. Three about the danger to the planet, two about human denial. Five news items. One for each finger of the hand you write with, dial the phone with, or raise into a fist. Three news items about the danger to the planet, And two news items about human denial, a depth of denial that, in this case, should be categorized as criminal or insane. Ah, better yet, criminally insane.

Scientists studying forest and peat fires in Siberia, Canada, California and Australia report that global warming has already led to increases in the number of fires and their intensity.

Global warming and deforestation have brought a second consecutive year of drought to the Amazon; one more year of drought, scientists say, could push the whole vast rainforest, the "lungs of the earth," over the tipping point and into a cycle of destruction which would turn it into a savannah at best, and impact weather as far away as Europe.

Meanwhile, in the USA...

The Bush-Cheney administration has removed "to understand and protect our home planet" from NASA's mission statement in an Orwellian effort to curtail the work of outspoken climate scientists like Dr. James Hansen.

And Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Chairman of the US Senate Committe on the Environment and Public Works told CNN's Glenn Beck that former Vice-President Al Gore is "full of crap" and that "this whole thing is a hoax."

Here excerpts with links to the full stories:

1. The 2003 heatwave triggered major rockfalls on the Matterhorn (Keystone). The risk of rockfalls and landslides in the Alps will continue to grow as the permafrost melts, warn the Swiss authorities. The Federal Environment Office has now drawn up a list of towns and villages most at threat from Switzerland's crumbling mountains. According to officials, all towns and villages situated on the valley floor are in danger of being hit by landslides....In addition to the risk of landslides, a number of places are threatened by lakes of meltwater. The fear is that natural barriers holding in the water could weaken due to global warming or that rockfalls could send a wall of water flooding over the top of dams. Wilfried Haeberli, a geology professor at Zurich University, told the SonntagsZeitung that the chances of a major disaster occurring increased as the permafrost melted....The issue of disintegrating Swiss mountains was brought home ten days ago by the spectacular mass of rock that broke off the Eiger mountain. Hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of rock collapsed after large fissures appeared in a giant slab of stone on the Eiger's eastern flank. Experts warn of more landslides as Alps melt, SWISS INFO, 7-23-06

2. Scientists worldwide are watching temperatures rise, the land turn dry and vast forests go up in flames. In the Siberian taiga and Canadian Rockies, in southern California and Australia, researchers find growing evidence tying an upsurge in wildfires to climate change, an impact long predicted by global-warming forecasters. Forest and peat fires release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, adding to climate warming, which in turn will intensify forest fires, further worsening warming in a planetary feedback loop. "This is a carbon bomb," said Johann Goldammer, director of the Global Fire Monitoring Center at Germany's Freiburg University. "It's sitting there waiting to be ignited, and there is already ignition going on." Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press, 7-22-06

3. Deep in the heart of the world's greatest rainforest, nine days' journey by boat from the sea, Otavio Luz Castello is anxiously watching the soft waters of the Amazon drain away. Every day they recede further, like water running slowly out of an unimaginably immense bath, threatening a global catastrophe....It is a sign that severe drought is returning to the Amazon for a second successive year. And that would be ominous indeed. For new research suggests that just one further dry year beyond that could tip the whole vast forest into a cycle of destruction. Just the day before, top scientists had been delivering much the same message at a remarkable floating symposium on the Rio Negro, on whose strange black waters this capital city of the Amazon stands. They told the meeting - convened on a flotilla of boats by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Greek Orthodox Church, dubbed the "green Pope" for his environmental activism - that global warming and deforestation were rapidly pushing the entire enormous area towards a "tipping point", where it would irreversibly start to die. The consequences would be truly awesome. The wet Amazon, the planet's greatest celebration of life, would turn to dry savannah at best, desert at worst. This would cause much of the world - including Europe - to become hotter and drier, making this sweltering summer a mild foretaste of what is to come. In the longer term, it could make global warming spiral out of control, eventually making the world uninhabitable.Geoffrey Lean, Dying Forest: One Year to Save the Amazon: Time is running out for the Amazon rainforest. And the fate of the 'lungs of the world' will take your breath away, Independent, 7-23-06

4. Yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attacked Al Gore and global warming science, claiming that Gore was “full of crap” on global warming. Appearing on Glenn Beck’s radio show and CNN television program, Inhofe said that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which concluded that global warming was real and caused by humans, used “one scientist.” Inhofe added: “[A]ll of the recent science…it confirms that I was right on this thing. This thing is a hoax."Think Progress, 7-21-06

5. From 2002 until this year, NASA’s mission statement, prominently featured in its budget and planning documents, read: “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can. In early February, the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” deleted. In this year’s budget and planning documents, the agency’s mission is “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”....The “understand and protect” phrase was cited repeatedly by James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA who said publicly last winter that he was being threatened by political appointees for speaking out about the dangers posed by greenhouse gas emissions....The revised mission statement was released with the agency’s proposed 2007 budget on Feb. 6. But Mr. Steitz said Dr. Hansen’s use of the phrase and its subsequent disappearance from the mission statement was “pure coincidence.”....Dr. Hansen said the change might reflect White House eagerness to shift the spotlight away from global warming. “They’re making it clear that they have the authority to make this change, that the president sets the objectives for NASA, and that they prefer that NASA work on something that’s not causing them a problem,” he said.NASA’s Goals Delete Mention of Home Planet, New York Times, 7-22-06

The political establishment is not providing leadership. The news media is not providing leadership.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Hard Rain Journal 7-22-06 Weekend Edition: Updates on US Election Fraud and the Dan Rather Watch

By Richard Power

Is this not an attack on Democracy? If 357,000 Americans were killed by al Qaeda, we would call that an attack on democracy and freedom. The press would headline such an event and it would shape our policies for decades to come. In a democracy, when 357,000 votes are effectively killed at the voting booth, what do you call it?…The national character of this scandal is unprecedented and threatens to turn us into little more than a banana republic, where candidates appear on the ballot in nameonly because the election has already been determined. If we are willing to send our troops around the world to secure freedom at the ballot box for others, shouldn't we fight for that right here at home? Partisanship has no place in this battle. For the sake of democracy…for the sake of America…it is time all citizens demand the sanctity of our election process. With the November elections almost upon us, we haven't a moment to lose.Catherine Crier, Court TV

Will the Abramhoff-related investigations of political corruption in Beltwayistan and the prosecution of Republican political operatives involved in the 2002 New Hampshire US Senate race connect the dots and expose the national rig-the-vote-machinery put in place over the last six years? They certainly should. And if the US Justice Department's career prosecutors and FBI investigators were allowed to pursue the truth, without pressure from on high, they certainly would. But even if they could, and did, what would the US mainstream news media do with this story? In a healthy democratic society, such a story would bring down the administration. (But, of course, we have already had several such stories die of neglect.)

RFK JR.: Well, you see this was just another corporate boondoggle that gave the most venal mendacious corporations charge of our most sacred public trust, which is the right to vote. These corporations were making hundreds of millions of dollars. The machines, as it turns out, were manufactured by wireless companies and were just a cheap piece of junk that cost less than $100 to manufacture, and they were selling them for $2400 apiece. And they were using Jack Abramoff and other corrupt lobbyists to persuade federal officials to pass the federal act to appropriate the money and then to persuade state and local officials to purchase the defective machines.BB: Jack Abramoff was involved in this?RFK JR.: Oh yes. Jack Abramoff, and Bob Ney (R-Oh), the principle figure in the Abramoff scandal and he's the author of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). And Diebold contributed millions of dollars to these guys, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to Abramoff to lobby on behalf of HAVA, and to lobby states like New York and the other states, to adopt the Diebold machines.BB: So HAVA was "created specifically to disenfranchise voters and verfication"?RFK JR.: HAVA was written specifically to require the states to buy Diebold machines. I mean one company basically had control of the whole legislative process. That's why HAVA has a provision in it that discourages vote verification by paper ballots. Both Republicans and Democrats tried to reform the HAVA, saying of course we should have paper verification of the vote....But Bob Ney fought tooth and nail against that provision because Diebold made a machine that does not provide a paper ballot. And he went so far, because Diebold contributed a million dollars to an organization that purportedly protects the rights of blind people. And in exchange for that, that organization got one of its officers to testify on Capitol Hill at the HAVA hearings, that blind people in America did not want paper ballots - voter verified ballots - because it would deprive someone of the right to vote secretly. Now the other organizations that support handicapped rights and rights of the blind, do not take that position. This was a position that that organization adopted after accepting a million dollars from Diebold. The whole operation was corrupt and now Bob Ney is going to jail for it.Democracy in Crisis - An Exclusive BRAD BLOG Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Brad Blog, 7-18-06

Now consider this insight from Raw Story coverage of the New Hampshire 2002 phone-jamming scheme:

The fourth man indicted in a New Hampshire phone-jamming scheme -- in which Republican operatives jammed the phone lines of Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts in a 2002 Senate race -- will argue at trial that the Bush Administration and the national Republican Party gave their approval to the plan, according to a motion filed by his attorney Thursday. Shaun Hansen, the former owner of the company that placed hang-up calls to jam Democratic phone lines, was indicted in March for conspiring to commit and aiding and abetting the commission of interstate telephone harassment relating to a scheme to thwart get out the vote efforts on Election Day, 2002. His lawyer's motion signals that Hansen intends to argue that he was entrapped because the Administration allegedly told his superiors the calls were legal. The filing indicates, however, that Hansen does not have firsthand knowledge of Administration intervention....According to AP, "The phone records show that most calls to the White House were from Tobin, who became President Bush's presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004. Other calls from New Hampshire senatorial campaign offices to the White House could have been made by a number of people."John Byrne, Man indicted in phone jamming case will argue Administration approved election scheme, Raw Story, 7-7-06

But, as Mark Crispin Miller warns, even if electoral subversion is thwarted this year, you should be prepared to fight:

If the GOP should lose the House and/or the Senate on Election Day, they will pick out a handful of the "closest" races--as many as they need to hang on to majority control--and start to scream like hell about ELECTION FRAUD. That's right: the major perpetrators of such fraud will cast themselves as victims of the very crime that put them where they are, and charge the Democrats with having used the very tactics that the Bush Republicans have now perfected: legal/bureaucratic disenfranchisement, e-voting manipulation, hostile challenges to would-be voters, covert efforts at disinformation, countless ballots thrown away, and so on....This, of course, is how the Busheviks routinely operate; and yet I'm basing this prediction not just on their history as war-propagandists, but on the blunt admission of a certain high-placed GOP insider, who recently told Thom Hartmann that this is the party's plan, if they should lose control of either side of Congress....The only way to foil that plan is to define the conflict truthfully and clearly, and to begin to do it now. However low the Bush regime may sink in the opinion polls, the Democrats, and all the rest of us, are simply cooked, if they do not stand up like vertebrates, and speak as patriots, and tell the nation the unpleasant truth: that these Bush Republicans are where they are today because they have committed vast election fraud, in 2000, and in 2002, and in 2004 Mark Crispin Miller, How To Pre-empt a "November Surprise", Huffington Post, 7-17-06

The other night Dan Rather was back in center ring. In an hour long interview with CNN's Larry King. Rather spoke with quiet fury about the suits at CBS who treated him, a 44-year employee, so disgracefully. It turns out that at the end, it was the lawyers--not actor-turned corporate honcho Leslie Moonves--who told Rather "we just don't have a place for you." But, as Rather understood--as has anyone watching the networks these last years--CBS News is a cog in an entertainment company."There came a time," he told King (who also works for an entertainment company with a news division) " when I realized...that we were working for not CBS and not CBS News. We were working for Viacom News...a larger entertainment company....but I want to do news that matters. And so much of the news these days...it's so driven by ratings, so driven by demographics, so driven by, we used to be told stockholder value. It's driven by things other than the public interest. I want to do news that's fair and accurate, do it with integrity and I want to do it in the public interest."In one of the more interesting exchanges, Rather talked about 60 Minutes's controversial broadcast about Bush's National Guard record.King: "You're saying that was a fair report, I mean that was--you believe that report to this day?" Rather: Do I believe the truth of the story? Absolutely.Rather added, "...We had a lot, a lot of corroboration..it wasn't just the documents. But it's a very old technique used when those who don't like what you're reporting, believe it can be hurtful, then they look for the weakest spot and attack it, which is fair enough." But, he added, " It's a diversionary technique." ...Here's a modest editorial idea for Rather. Now that you're back with a weekly news program on Mark Cuban's HDNet TV-- and with the editorial freedom and mandate to do tough investigative reports, how about documenting the full story about the White House coverup of George W. Bush's military service?Katrina vanden Heuvel, Dan Rather Stands By Controversial 60 Minutes Broadcast, The Nation, 7-14-06

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Distraction does not mean deliverance. In most instances, while you indulge in distraction, your doom only deepens. Just as the world's attention was distracted from Afghanistan to Iraq, it is now being distracted from Iraq to Lebanon. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is resurgent and preparing for a major offensive. In Iraq, all hope (if there ever was any) has been lost in chaos and anarchy. Meanwhile, the planet itself is changing, rapidly and for the worse -- because of the burning of fossil fuels, which is, afterall, the very reason behind this struggle for geopolitical hegemony in the Middle East. It is madness.

Sustainability is the only way for us to overcome the challenges of global warming and climate change. And, ironically, it is also the best solution to the world's energy security issues. Yes, those very energy security issues which have aggravated and accelerated global warming and climate change to civilization-threatening intensity. Indeed, sustainability will significantly undercut the real motivation behind current and future conflicts, like the one in Lebanon, which has distracted so many of us from the one in Iraq, which has distracted so many of us from the one in Afghanistan. Madness.

Consider these two reports on the weather in Europe and the US, and then ask yourself what you, your friends and family, and the organization you work for or lead should be doing about global warming and climate change:

The heat wave sweeping Europe is a direct consequence of the warming of the earth's atmosphere, experts say. "We are observing and suffering the first effects of global warming," Hervé Le Treut, meteorologist at the French Centre for Scientific Research told IPS. "The emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are leading to higher temperatures all over the world, but these are observed in an irregular manner across the continents," he said. "The global weather is clearly disturbed." Record temperatures of well over 35 degrees Celsius were recorded all over Europe this week. On Jul. 20 Paris and Berlin registered 39 degrees. In Belgium, Jul. 19 was the hottest day ever in July, with 37 degrees. The July maximum temperature record was also broken in Britain. The mercury reached 36.5 Celsius at the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens at Wisley in Surrey. The previous record for July, 36 degrees, was set in Epsom in 1911....The heat wave has led to several deaths across Europe...."The heat wave of 2003 reached its climax during August," Le Treut said. "This year temperatures have been over the average already during the spring. The hottest days are still ahead of us." Another reason for the relatively low number of deaths this year is the warning system introduced by health authorities, especially in France.Julio Godoy, Global Warming, Not Just Heat Wave, Inter Press Service, 7-21-06

The journal Nature said in 2004 that “severe heat waves are now four times as likely to occur because of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.”A roundup of news coverage from this week’s heat wave in the U.S. and Europe gives a sense of what we can expect in the future:Nevada: “Reno set a record for heat Sunday, breaking an 81-year-old record, according to the National Weather Service.”Czech Republic: “The temperature in Prague climbed up to 34.3 degrees centigrade today and beat the 141 year old record of the day by 0.6 degrees.”South Dakota: “Saturday’s statewide high temperature that unofficially tied a South Dakota record set 70 years earlier is likely to stand, a National Weather Service employee says.”Britain: “Britain sweltered on the hottest July day for nearly a century as the current heatwave reached its peak.”California: “Indio (122 degrees), Palm Springs (118), Riverside (108), Sun City-Perris (108), San Bernardino (107), Temecula (106) and Moreno Valley (104) all set record highs Saturday, according to the National Weather Service and records kept by The Press-Enterprise.”Arkansas: “Another scorcher today after record temperatures were set in some Arkansas cities yesterday. Monticello reached 109 degrees Wednesday and in Little Rock a record of 104 degrees for the date was set.”New Hampshire: “It reached 95 degrees in Manchester. That beats the previous high for the date of 93 degrees. The old record was set in 1968.”New York and Connecticut: “Dangerous heat settled over the Central Plains and Northeast for another day Tuesday, producing record high temperatures in New York and Connecticut, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Weather Service.”North Dakota: “In Bismarck, the temperature broke a record and Dickinson tied a record.”Kansas: “…a day that saw a record high temperature of 109 for Wichita, topping by 2 degrees the mark set during the legendary heat wave of 1980.”Germany: “Germany’s national meteorological service said July was on the way to being the hottest since records beganAn Inconvenient Truth and An Intolerable Summer, Think Progress, 7-20-06

The political establishment is not providing leadership. The news media is not providing leadership.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

This blog now focuses on exploring new language for the truths of the ancient future, and reflects insights into Vajrayana Buddha Dharma, Kashmir Shiva-Sakti philosophy, Hatha and Tantra Yoga, the Shamanic path, and other aspects of the world's collective mystical heritage. It also offers commentary on art, music, literature, human rights, sustainability, independent journalism, economic justice and the Climate Crisis.

For much of his life, Power worked in the fields of security and intelligence. He delivered briefings and led training in forty countries, and was an adviser to governments and corporations. His views have been featured in interviews on CNN, PBS, NPR and the BBC, and quoted in mainstream news media, including Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters and Associated Press.